


The Care, Keeping, and Understanding of Khoshekh

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Animal Abuse, BAMF Carlos, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil is Human, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Freaked Out Carlos, Freaked Out Cecil, Hopeful Ending, Khoshekh is a Good Cat, Love, M/M, Male Slash, Medical Device, Medical Jargon, Medical Procedures, Protective Carlos, Protective Cecil, Scientist Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 20:12:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1791727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takes place mostly post-"Visitor", although there is a minor timeskip forward to the end of "Renovations". </p><p>Written for the prompt: "Carlos and Khoshekh, fluff and cuteness. After Khoshekh gets brought home, he and Carlos learn to live with each other. Even if mass amounts of Claritin are required."</p><p>Carlos is not a cat person, but he's starting to see the appeal. Anything that Cecil so obviously adores can't be all bad. After his attack by the StrexPet, Khoshekh is moved in to stay with them. There's a period of adjustment for all involved, but an understanding is eventually reached, and Carlos is forced to admit that cats aren't so bad after all. Even in Night Vale. Maybe especially in Night Vale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Care, Keeping, and Understanding of Khoshekh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryttu3k](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryttu3k/gifts).



> Unfortunately light on the fluff and cuteness until near the end, but I hope it still satisfies. I did take some liberty with Khoshekh's appearance, but given that this is a creature that can possess spine ridges and a venom sac while still being called a "cat", I don't think they're that out there. 
> 
> Researching different feeding tube methods for cats was, to say the least, somewhat unsettling. But, hopefully what I found was accurate. Honestly, the things I do for you people ;) .

It was never a question of “would Khoshekh stay at their house after he was released from the vets’?”

Instead, it was a question of “what allergy medicine would best help Carlos live through Khoshekh staying at their house after he was released from the vets’?” Shortly followed by “If there is no allergy medicine that will sufficiently help Carlos, what motel will he stay at?”

It was true that Carlos was not, by nature, a fan of cats. They had a tendency to get everywhere they weren’t wanted and willfully ignore important instructions like “please don’t knock that over, it’s full of a corrosive substance.” He’d always been more of a dog person, and had never quite forgotten that so had Cecil and several other people before Khoshekh had grown up. Whatever was in Khoshekh’s meow or purr or venom sacs that accomplished that, however, had never done the same to Carlos. This was probably in part because Carlos had never actually _seen_ him, due to the aforementioned allergies. This, coupled with Khoshekh’s apparent inability to be photographed at all, meant that Carlos had occasionally doubted that the cat even existed.

Well, now Carlos and Khoshekh had met. Now there was no denying that this cat – for lack of a better word – both existed and was utterly adored by not just his boyfriend, but all surviving staff in the radio station. Cecil had vacillated back and forth between hysterical giggling at even being able to hold his pet after all this time and quiet sobbing over the circumstances that had led them both to that point, all while they were waiting for the ambulance. When they’d brought out the remains of the StrexPet™, bundled up in a sheet, he’d buried his face in Carlos’ shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see even that much.

Khoshekh, meanwhile, had waited shivering in Cecil’s arms all while they waited for the ambulance and all during the ride over. The cat had barely stopped purring for a second, kept his face pressed into the crook of Cecil’s arm, and mewled in distress and pain whenever Cecil so much as twitched. Carlos had never, in all his time in Night Vale, seen Cecil in so much pain, especially when almost none of it was his.

It hadn’t been a long trip, to the station parking lot to the waiting room of the vet’s office, and the familiar sting of sterile chemicals had been a pleasant distraction while he could still smell them, but Carlos had still been left a sniffling, coughing, aching, miserable wreck by the end of it. He’d still stayed with Cecil every damn minute, though. Anything else was unthinkable.

The first time Cecil spoke to say anything directly to Carlos beyond “thank you for coming” was when they were sitting together in the waiting room, the chairs turned so that they could comfortably sit with Cecil tucked into Carlos’ side, his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder and Carlos’ arm around his shoulders.

What he said was, “I need to make sure I pick up a new litter box, for Khoshekh. I…don’t think he’ll be able to reach the new one, anymore. And we’ll need to get him a bed, too, a real bed, so he has somewhere safe to sleep.”

And that was that. There was no question of whether Khoshekh would be coming home with them. There were still plenty of station employees who weren’t on Strex’s payroll in anything but the literal sense, who would have happily taken Khoshekh in without having to deal with allergies. Cecil spoke as if the inclusion of a cat in their lives for the next indefinitely long while was already an accepted fact.

Carlos had a vague sense that he should be offended by the fact that he so clearly came in second to a cat. It wasn’t that Cecil didn’t know he was allergic.

Then he remembered Cecil, clutching the cat close in bloodied, shaking hands, murmuring to him in a soft, broken voice, _“See, Khoshekh, this is outside, that’s the moon, those are the stars, aren’t they beautiful? It’s going to be okay, buddy, you’ll be okay, I’ll take you home, and I can show you flowers, and couches, and floors…”_

“Can you get me some Claritin while you’re out?” Carlos asked instead around his swollen sinuses, turning his head to kiss Cecil softly on his temple.

* * *

Just like that, they had a cat – for lack of a better word. Carlos knew, even if it was never said aloud, that they had a cat for the intermediate future well above and beyond his projected recovery, because returning him to the station was unthinkable.

For all that Carlos knew that ordinary cats did not have spine ridges, venom sacs, six legs, or quite that many eyes – even if one was missing, now – it was easy to forget, as days went by. For all the fearsome things he’d heard about this particular cat over the course of Cecil’s radio reports, Khoshekh purred like a cat, and meowed like a cat, and kneaded his working paws against Cecil’s pants-leg like a cat when Cecil petted him.

In turn, there had never been a more devoted pet owner than the radio host. Khoshekh barely had to turn his head before Cecil had bundled him up once more, ready to move him wherever he wanted to move. Carlos couldn’t blame him for this, of course – after all, the first time neither of them had been looking and Khoshekh had stumbled to rise only to slump back to the floor with a yowl had been badly distressing enough for Carlos. Cecil had been left nearly in tears again as he apologized to the cat, gathering him carefully up to bring him up onto the couch.

Beyond that, it was probably just as well that Khoshekh was having difficulty in even learning to walk on five remaining paws. Cecil couldn’t have been more obviously overjoyed at just being able to carry him around the house, from room to room, pointing out this piece of furniture or that as Khoshekh saw it for the first time. It was only at Carlos’ gentle but stern reminders that Cecil remembered to help try and teach the cat at all.

There had never been a more devoted pet than Khoshekh. Even just looking at Cecil could set him to purring, He nuzzled himself into Cecil’s petting, rubbed against the man as though he were made of catnip, and honestly seemed to be paying attention whenever Cecil gave him a tour of the house. For all Carlos knew, he was. One of the few virtues of cats was that they were supposed to be particularly intelligent, after all.

In defiance of all the standup comedy jokes ever, however, Khoshekh seemed as uneasy with Carlos’ presence as Carlos was with his. He wouldn’t outright hiss whenever the scientist drew near, but the way his tail would twitch and his ears go flat was evidence enough. Carlos, for his part, was miserable. He tried to be quietly miserable. At least Khoshekh was a short-haired cat, at least Cecil kept him in Claritin and was willing to shower two or three times a day to keep the cat hair shed on him from building to critical mass. He hadn’t even had to ask Cecil to sleep on the couch until Carlos’ immune system caught up. In fact, it had been more of a case of reminding Cecil to sleep on the couch instead of the floor by Khoshekh’s new cat bed.

They didn’t even have to spend all that much on food. In fact, the first time Cecil publically announced news of Khoshekh’s secured survival, he came home laden down with two paper sacks full of Science Brand Cat Food, courtesy of everyone in the station besides Lauren and Daniel. For the first time in Khoshekh’s life, however, it wasn’t low calorie. The vets had agreed that he’d need all the energy he could get, healing up.

Of course, feeding Khoshekh anything but a prescribed liquid diet was going to wait until the feeding tube was ready to come out.

The feeding tube was a problem. It was an esophagostomy tube, just meant to be kept in place for three days or so, because Khoshekh’s face had been too badly slashed to allow for a naso-gastric tube. That was probably for the best, in a twisted way, because esophagostomy tubes were larger and therefore less likely to clog. It was good that they were less likely to clog, because for all the horrors that Cecil didn’t even understand to be horrific as an everyday part of Night Vale, operating the feeding tube usually had him nearly hyperventilating. He was fine with cleaning Khoshekh’s fur with antiseptic wipes to avoid chafing around the bandages and tube, but the actual act of pouring food down the tube and into the cat seemed to unnerve him as almost nothing else did.

For the sake of Cecil’s peace of mind, Carlos stayed nearby during every feeding, a hand on Cecil’s shoulder. For the sake of Khoshekh’s peace of mind, however, Cecil handled the feedings.

It turned out one day, however, that “less likely” was the operative word for the feeding tube.

Carlos got the sense that something was wrong about half a second before Khoshekh started coughing, and was already moving to check the tube for clogs. “W-What’s wrong?” Cecil stammered, pulling away as though he’d been burned. “What did I do?”

They’d both been there when this particular eventuality was explained, but clearly Cecil was too flustered, too on the verge of panic at the sight of his cat in distress he believed himself to be even partially the cause of, to remember it. “It’s just a clog,” Carlos said, getting to his feet and bolting for the kitchen. “Let me get some water.” They would need to flush it.

Fortunately, the clog itself was keeping any further food from reaching Khoshekh and possibly getting where it shouldn’t. The shock of it, however, kept the cat still and waiting while Carlos went through the motions. Flush the tube with water once, then again while carefully massaging the tube to smooth out any kinks. In doing so, he accidentally tugged just a bit too much on it. That was still enough to earn a protesting growl from Khoshekh and a bat from his paw.

“Shut up,” Carlos said, and even he was surprised by how soft his voice was. He reached out, almost without thinking, to rub a hand over Khoshekh’s head. “This will help.”

And, when his continuing efforts to work the tube open resulted in a promising gurgle of the last of the food clearing away, Khoshekh seemed to understand that he was speaking the truth. As Carlos capped it off for the night, he didn’t recognize at first the feeling of being nuzzled affectionately, not until he looked down into a set of adoring yellow eyes.

Carlos hesitated, knowing that he was going to regret this in about five minutes, but finally reached down to stroke the cat – their pet – once more on the head. “It’s okay, buddy. You’re okay now.” He then proceeded to explain exactly what had happened, both to his boyfriend and their patient, because of course it was always a good idea if everyone involved was well informed about their options. By the time he was done, Khoshekh was purring once more and Cecil was hugging him fiercely, beaming like Carlos hadn’t seen him smile in _weeks_ , and even if Carlos had to go and take a hot shower, it was worth it.

Even if he never quite had the time to bring his immune system up to snuff, he and Khoshekh came to an understanding after that. Carlos handled his feedings from then on, always with Cecil hovering anxiously, and Khoshekh stopped sleeping in the clean laundry.

Carlos was finally forced to admit that there were worse pets.

* * *

_He wasn’t there when Cecil finally returned to the radio station, defiant and triumphant. He couldn’t be there, not with Night Vale still in tumultuous revolt and Strex Corp still actively searching for him. It was safer for them both if he stayed away a little longer._

_Carlos was listening, however. He was listening when Cecil described the inactive state of Daniel, former Station Management, and the likely cause of death._

_He smiled in the dark._

_“Good kitties.”_


End file.
